cultural mulch: stories about who we are and where …€¦ · 1 work with a partner to brainstorm...

CULTURAL MULCH: STORIES ABOUT WHO WE ARE AND WHERE WE GROW

ISBN 978-1-107-64863-0 Photocopying is restricted under law and this material must not be transferred to another party.

© van Haren et al. 2011 Cambridge University Press

[1]IN THIS CHAPTER YOU WILL:

ISBN 978-1-107-64863-0 Photocopying is restricted under law and this material must not be transferred to another party.


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metaphor culture

cultural background

metaphor

a comparison of one

thing to another where

it is described in terms

of being something else

without the use of ‘as’

or ‘like’

culture

a shared and learned

system of values, beliefs

and attitudes that

shapes and influences

who you are and your

place in the world

cultural background

the context of one’s

life experience as

shaped by membership

in groups based on

religion, ethnicity, race,

socioeconomic status

and gender

> >>

> >>

ENGLISH FOR THE AUSTRALIAN CURRICULUM BOOK 22ISBN 978-1-107-64863-0 Photocopying is restricted under law and this material must not be transferred to another party.


cultural understandings

cultural

understandings

the ways in which

particular groups

of people perceive,

interpret and understand

the world around them,

these understandings

enable individuals in the

group to relate to each

other, and could concern

ideas about race,

ethnicity, nationality,

religion, gender, age,

art, music, clothing,

architecture, and so on

A variety of factors contribute to our cultural background

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1: CULTURAL MULCH: STORIES ABOUT WHO WE ARE AND WHERE WE GROW 3ISBN 978-1-107-64863-0 Photocopying is restricted under law and this material must not be transferred to another party.


REFLECT AND INTERACT >>

Activity 1.1 The mulch around you

Bring in some of the objects that make up your cultural mulch. This may include your favourite books, a necklace or gift given to you by someone special, family photos, your favourite foods or your favourite song.

1 Pair up and introduce your partner to these items.

2 Now listen to what your partner has to say about their items.

3 Consider the following things when introducing your items:

• What do they say about who you are?

• Why are they important to you?

• How would you feel without them?

• What do they say about your cultural background?

• Do any of these items tell your partner that you are Australian?

text

narrative

REFLECT ON

Think about stories that your parents, grandparents or other people in your community have

told you that mean a lot to you. Do these stories tell you something about who you are and

where you come from? Does telling them to other people nourish you and make you feel closer

to your cultural background?

texts

communications in

various media; texts

can be written, visual,

spoken or multimodal

and in print or digital

form

narrative

the relating of stories of

events or experiences,

imaginary (fiction) or real

(non-fiction), including

what is narrated and

how it is narrated



READING WORDS AND IMAGES: ‘eric’ BY SHAUN TAN

Tales from Outer

Suburbia

We all have stories to tell

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READ AND EVALUATE >>

Activity 1.2 Reading words and pictures together

1 Read the full story ‘eric’ from Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan.

2 Who is telling the story? Find some evidence to support your answer.

3 Do the images present the same point of view as the printed words? Again, find some evidence to support your answer.

4 What aspects of the first picture of Eric suggest that he:

• is foreign?

• doesn’t mind that the family can’t pronounce his name?

5 What aspects of the second picture suggest Eric’s feelings about living in the pantry?

6 What aspects of the third picture suggest:

• the subject of Eric’s study?

• Eric’s ‘silent, intensity’ and his ‘curiosity’?

7 The panel of four pictures on page 11 of ‘eric’ gives examples of his questions. ‘Translate’ Eric’s questions into English. Can you think of any better answers than those given by the narrator?

8 Propose a setting for each of the six pictures that show Eric ‘the best places in the city and its surrounds’. How does the positioning of Eric in each of these pictures support the narrator’s concern that ‘it was hard to really know’ if Eric enjoyed the trips?

9 What understandings do you form of Eric’s cultural background from the final picture of his gift to the family?

REFLECT ON

Has your family ever hosted a visitor from another culture?

1 Work with a partner to brainstorm a list of the challenges and benefits of sharing your home

with someone who has been growing in different cultural mulch.

2 Share your ideas with another pair of students.

TEXT CONVENTIONS



text conventions

symbol

text conventions

the generally accepted

rules, usage or standard

formats that structure

texts

symbol

something that stands

for or represents

something else within

a text

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MULCH FOR HAPPINESS AND WELLBEING: ‘NO OTHER COUNTRY’ BY SHAUN TAN

Tales from Outer Suburbia

English for the Australian Curriculum Book

1

The green painted concrete out the front of the house, which at first seemed like a novel way to save money on lawn-mowing, was now just plain depressing. The hot water came reluctantly to the kitchen sink as if from miles away, and even then without conviction, and sometimes a pale brownish colour. Many of the windows wouldn’t open properly to let flies out. Others wouldn’t shut properly to stop them getting in. The newly planted fruit trees died in the sandy soil of a too-bright backyard and were left like grave-markers under the slack laundry lines, a small cemetery of disappointment. It appeared to be impossible to find the right kinds of food, or learn the right way to say even simple things. The children said very little that wasn’t a complaint.

‘No other country is worse than this one,’ their mother announced loudly and often, and nobody felt the need to challenge her.

After paying the mortgage, there was no money left to fix anything. ‘You kids have to do more to help your mother,’ their father kept saying, and this included going out to find the cheapest plastic Christmas tree available and storing it temporarily in the roof space. Here was something to look forward to at least, and the children spent the next month making their own decorations, cutting paper and foil into interesting shapes on the living room floor, and attaching pieces of thread. It helped them forget about the sweltering heat and all their troubles at school …

Tales from Outer Suburbia

Cultural mulch helps us to grow and be happy



READ AND EVALUATE >>

Activity 1.3 Images in ‘No Other Country’

Read all of ‘No Other Country’ from Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan and closely examine the accompanying images, noting whenever you detect language, images and ideas that seem to come from the cultural mulch in which Shaun Tan was nourished.

1 Annotate the text as you read, and after you have finished reading it, using the signs in this table.

??

Underline

Underline

C

C

!!

2 Discuss your annotations with a partner. Share any other opinions, ideas or connections you have made about the cultural understandings communicated in the story.

LOOK CLOSER

1 What do you think the cultural background of the family is?

2 Which country is the setting for the story?

3 What is the family’s attitude to their new home at the beginning of the story?

4 What is the family’s attitude to their new home at the end of the story?

stereotype

stereotype

a widely held but

oversimplified

image or idea

about a particular

type of person or

thing

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EVALUATE >>

Activity 1.4 Cultural understanding in ‘No Other Country’

Record the details that informed your inferences in a T-chart like the one below. A T-chart is a handy note-taking framework to use when you want to link your inferences and assumptions to specific textual details. Some ideas and textual details have been included in the following chart to help you get going. Fill in the blank sections of the T-chart before recording any other assumptions and inferences you formed.

My assumptions and inferences Supporting textual details



LOOK CLOSER

1 Explore Shaun Tan’s final illustration for ‘No Other Country’ (reproduction above), which

follows the final words of the story from the neighbour with the Greek cultural background:

‘Yes, yes, every house here has the inner courtyard, if you can find it. Very strange, you

know, because nowhere else has this thing. No other country.’

2 Note down the first five things you notice when you look at this image.

The inner courtyard from ‘No Other Country’ in Tales from Outer Suburbia

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SYMBOLS

allegory

story or image

that has two

meanings, one

which operates on

a symbolic level



READ AND EXPLORE >>

Activity 1.5 Symbols

Most of the objects in Shaun Tan’s illustration of an ‘ancient wall decorated with frescoes’ can be read symbolically.

Work with a partner to make inferences about the meanings of the symbols listed in the table below. You might need to use an online search engine to help you interpret those that are not familiar from your own cultural background. Don’t hunt for too long, however. Most often, the best interpretation is the first one that occurs to you. This is because the meanings of symbols often seem to come to us quite naturally, especially when they have become an integral part of the cultural mulch that nourishes us.

Symbol Interpretation

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IDENTIFY >>

Activity 1.6 Visual features

Complete the chart below to help you begin to examine how Tan utilises layout and object positioning to suggest aspects of the family’s cultural background. His use of colour has been done for you.

Visual feature Example Inferences made

about family’s cultural

background

IDENTIFY AND ANALYSE >>

Activity 1.7 Exploring frescoes

1 Search online for the word ‘fresco’ and find several examples of frescoes to compare to Tan’s example.

2 Choose the one you like best and post it on the class wiki. Include any information about the real world setting of the frescoes you find, as well as any details about the subject or content.



3 Consider and comment on the visual details of the fresco you post. You could comment on details such as the choice of objects and their positioning in the foreground or the background of the fresco.

4 Which parts of the fresco do you focus on to help you make meaning? What do you notice about the use of colour?

5 Once you have posted and commented on one fresco, add your comments to the frescoes posted by a few of your classmates. Make sure you have looked closely at several frescoes before you consider the following questions about the fresco in ‘No Other Country’.

LOOK CLOSER

1 What details in this picture link to the descriptions of the family’s inner courtyard given in

the story?

2 What details in this picture suggest that the family’s inner courtyard is not exactly ‘like

being back in their home country’, it was ‘also somewhere else, somewhere altogether

different’?

3 What allegorical story about immigration, new lands and homelands can you now read in

the fresco?

NOSTALGIC PLACES

I read one story of an immigrant who referred

to ‘the curse of two countries’. He spoke of the

tendency to idealise one’s homeland in the face

of problems and disappointments experienced

in a new place; ‘it’s never as good as home.’ Yet

when he revisited the Italian town of his youth as

an older man, he realised that it was not actually

the nostalgic place constructed in memory (one

that overlooked certain flaws and annoyances).

Moreover, it was also greatly transformed due to

social and technological change, such that the

‘Old Country’ now existed only in his imagination.

My small story takes some inspiration from this

condition, the ‘curse of two countries’, and also

its simultaneous ‘blessing’: the opportunity

for a richly imagined, internal landscape, the

immigrant’s ‘inner courtyard’.

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nostalgia

REFLECT AND WRITE >>

Activity 1.8 What makes you nostalgic?

What makes you nostalgic? Imagine how your nostalgic longings could be represented in a ‘richly imagined, internal landscape,’ perhaps as an inner courtyard, or maybe some other kind of room that lies within the walls of your own family home. Use the idea of an inner courtyard from ‘No Other Country,’ as well as what you have learned about allegory and symbols, to write a description of your personal nostalgia.

1 Begin by creating a concept map of the buildings, objects, plants, music, characters and activities that would symbolise your longings. Use the concept map below as a guide.

2 Use your concept map to help you structure your written description. Each set of details on the concept map might be expanded into separate paragraphs.

3 Alternatively, you might use a structure of the five senses: what do you see, smell, taste, hear, feel in your inner courtyard? Each sense could develop into a paragraph, drawing on the various details contained in your concept map.

nostalgia

derived from the Greek

phrase for ‘returning

home’, it describes a

longing to return to

happier times or to a

place where one was

happy

Furnitureand objects

My family’s inner

courtyard

Plants

People

Activities

Music

Landscapingfeatures



INTERACT AND CREATE >>

Activity 1.9 Ideas about belonging

1 In pairs, read an interview online with Shaun Tan about The Lost Thing, which explores his ideas about belonging (search for ‘Interview with Shaun Tan – Australian Edge’).

2 Make a list of two to four questions you would ask Shaun Tan about his work and belonging.

3 In your pairs, choose one person to act as the interviewer and the other to pretend to be Shaun Tan and conduct an interview using the questions you have written.

4 Record your interview either as a podcast or vodcast, depending on the equipment you have access to at your school.

5 Post your interview on a class wiki.

USING SENTENCE STRUCTURE FOR EFFECT

Good writers control the structure of sentences to emphasise important details and

create appropriate moods. The length of sentences, the word order and the form

of sentences are all aspects to consider when you want to make your writing more

interesting and engaging for your readers.

Let’s have another look at this sentence from the opening paragraph of ‘No Other

Country’:

The hot water came reluctantly to the kitchen sink as if from miles away, and even then without conviction, and sometimes a pale brownish colour.

The sentence follows this pattern:

1 Adverbial phrase

2 Adverbial phrase

3 Adverbial phrase

4 Adjectival phrase

– as evident below, where the sentence has been broken into its parts to help you see

how the structure works:

The hot water came1 reluctantly to the kitchen sink2 as if from miles away, and3 even then without conviction, and4 sometimes a pale brownish colour.

This sentence has a poetic quality. It is a kind of grammatical metaphor for the way

the water moved through the pipes. Tan has used a simple sentence structure – it has

only one verb – ‘came’. However, the simple sentence has become quite lengthy with

the addition of three adverbial phrases and an adjectival phrase which describe how

the hot water came.

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WRITE >>

Activity 1.10 Sentence structure

Using this sentence structure as a model, revise some of the sentence structures in your description so that they also become grammatical metaphors. For example, you could create sentence structures that echo content about:

• the way vines and creepers grow in the courtyard

• birdsong

• the aromas of food cooking

• leisure activities and sport.

READ MORE

Visit Shaun Tan’s website (www.shauntan.net) to develop an appreciation of this talented and quirky artist’s contribution to contemporary Australia’s cultural mulch. Here you will be able to source details of his other works, including picture books, graphic novels, films, essays and visual art.

TRANSPLANTING CULTURES AND THE IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE

The Arrival

surrealsurreal

describes imagery that

is bizarre or fantastic,

often displaying

characteristics and

qualities that you might

associate with dreams



The Arrival cover art by Shaun Tan

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It looks like a poster, but I don’t understand the symbols. It reminds me of the headlines

posters I used to see in newsagents and on corners where newspapers were sold.

REFLECT ON

In a whole class discussion, create a list of reasons why people choose to immigrate. In your

list, include the reasons given by classmates who are immigrants or who are the children and

grandchildren of immigrants.

The Arrival

empathy The Arrival

IDENTIFY AND INTERACT >>

Activity 1.11 Annotate images

Shaun Tan’s work depends on your shared cultural understanding of body language and the function of objects.

1 Choose one or two individual drawings from The Arrival and use post-it notes to annotate the details that are familiar and also those that are different from what you are used to. The first frame has been done to give you some idea of how to proceed.

2 Share your work with three or four students in your class. Create lists of the familiar and different objects.

empathy

the experience of

identifying with the

thoughts, feelings and

attitudes of another; it is

an important aspect of

the way readers engage

with a narrative – the

more you empathise

with a character, the

more involved you might

find yourself in the story;

a reader empathises

when they imagine how

similar their own feelings

and responses would

be if they were in the

character’s shoes

The boy’s gaze is out of the frame. He looks like

he is scanning the area for approaching customers. His

old-fashioned cap and clothing remind me of newspaper sellers

in historical movies.

The boy’s hand is ready to take one of the papers from under his arm. He looks like he is

distributing the papers. He reminds me of the newspaper sellers that

used to work in the city.

Angle of head suggests man is looking at object he is holding in his hand. It looks like he is

reading a newspaper that he has just received from the young boy.



body

language

The Arrival

body language

the various physical,

mental or emotional

states that we read

from non-verbal

communication made

up of gestures, postures,

facial expressions

The story of the giants

The old country

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INTERPRET AND INTERACT >>

Activity 1.12 Interpreting images

1 Work with a partner to discuss the images ‘The old country’ and ‘The story of the giants’.

2 Draw inferences and then propose an interpretation of each image.

3 What does each image suggest about why someone would want to leave that environment?

ANALYSE AND EXTEND >>

Activity 1.13 Further interpretations

1 Working in pairs, use a T-chart to link your inferences to particular textual details.

Image analysis: The Arrival

Textual details Your inferences

‘The old country’

‘The story of the giants’

2 Share your interpretations with another pair of students. What are the similarities and the differences in your interpretations?



READ MORE

You can read other stories about the immigrant experience online. The website Immigration Bridge (www.immigrationbridge.com.au) is a good place to start.

If you are an immigrant to Australia, you may wish to contribute your own story to the website.

IDENTIFY AND CREATE >>

Activity 1.14 Imagery, metaphors and symbols

1 Identify a reason for migrating that might be represented through imagery, metaphors or symbols. You will need to think of images and symbols that will make concrete such abstract ideas as poverty, environmental degradation and political or religious persecution.

2 Create a visual representation of the reason for migrating. You might prepare a poster, a collage, a multimedia presentation or, as Shaun Tan has done in The Arrival, use a graphic novel layout to tell a migrant’s motives in leaving their home country.

SPEAK AND INTERACT >>

Activity 1.15 Gallery walk

A gallery walk is a discussion strategy that will give you the opportunity to share your work with your classmates and check that you understand the ways that images, metaphors and symbols work to communicate abstract ideas.

1 Copy the following questions onto the top edge of a piece of paper that is larger than your work:

• What motives are suggested for a migrant leaving their home country?

• What images, metaphors and/or symbols imply these motives?

2 Fix your work to the middle of the piece of paper. There should be enough room for classmates to place Post-it notes around your work.

3 Display your work on the walls of the classroom.

4 Arm yourself with a wad of Post-it notes and a pen.

5 Assume that your work is 12 o’clock. Locate the work that is closest to six o’clock (that is, directly opposite yours) and examine it closely. Write your answers to the questions onto the Post-it notes and affix them to the paper surrounding the work – closest to the details you have noticed. Work in a clockwise direction and examine at least three or four pieces of work, repeating the annotation exercise for each piece.

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6 Return to your own work. Read through the notes that have been left by your classmates.

7 Conclude this exercise with a reflective journal entry or a class wiki post in which you assess the extent to which your work was well understood by others and the extent to which you understood the work of others. Can you suggest which cultural understandings are shared by your class?

TRANSPLANTING AND TRANSFORMING CULTURES THROUGH THE WORLD WIDE WEB

Flight

Paths: A Networked Novel

Flight Paths: A Networked Novel homepage



VIEW AND ANALYSE >>

Activity 1.16 Asking questions

This is intended as a whole class activity where you view the novel projected onto a whiteboard if you can. Someone will need to advance each frame of the story with a mouse click.

1 Go to www.flightpaths.net and view the five chapters of the narrative. There is a soundtrack, so make sure you keep your speakers on.

2 Individually, develop questions about the setting, characters, plot and multimedia tools used to tell the story.

3 Stop after each chapter to record your questions in a chart like the one below. Some sample questions have been provided. Try to have more questions than anyone else in your class. You might even ask questions for which you think you know the answers.

Flight

Paths

Setting Characters Plot Multimedia

tools

Other

questions

4 Share your questions in a class graffiti exercise. This requires five large pieces of paper – one for each chapter of the story – which act as the graffiti boards. An example is provided here. Yacub

in Dubai

Settingquestions

Character questions

Multimediaquestions

Other questions

Plot questions

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EXTEND AND INTERACT >>

Activity 1.17 Jigsaw activity

Once everyone’s questions are recorded, divide into five groups for a jigsaw activity.

What is a jigsaw activity?

This activity is characterised by participants within a cooperative group each becoming expert on different aspects of one topic of study.

• Before presenting and teaching to the cooperative group, students form ‘expert groups’, comprised of individuals from different cooperative groups who have the same assigned topic.

• Together, expert partners study their topic and plan effective ways to teach important information when they return to their cooperative groups.

• One way of teaching is for the expert group to display their information on paper.

• Participants return to their cooperative groups and then take their cooperative group on a Gallery Tour (walk around the room) to each display.

• Alternatively, participants can return to their cooperative groups and teach all members of their group, as they are now the experts.

What do you do?

1 Expert groups are each assigned one of the graffiti boards. They should discuss and propose answers to as many of the questions listed as possible, making sure that they firstly address all questions with multiple ticks.

2 The home cooperative groups reform and each member’s questions are answered by the relevant expert.

3 All unanswered questions at the end of the jigsaw should be addressed in a whole class discussion.

MULTIMODAL TEXTSmultimodal text

Flight Paths

Flight Paths

multimodal text

a text that combines

language modes

(reading, viewing,

writing, creating,

speaking and listening)

and processes; for

example, the production

of visual, audio, spoken

and non-verbal forms

of expression through a

range of technologies



Flight Paths

narrative structure

Flight Paths

Flight Paths

Juxtaposition

Flight Paths

Flight Paths

REFLECT ON

Consider the ending of the story. What impact did it have on you? How did it make you feel?

narrative structure

the framework and order

of a story

juxtaposition

to place two things

side by side, especially

for the purposes of

comparison or contrast,

to draw links between

them

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READ, WRITE, CREATE

WHICH STORYTELLING TOOLS?

WHAT STORY?

1

2

3 Flight Paths

Flight Paths



4

GOING FURTHER

REFLECT ON WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED

1

2

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cultural mulch: stories about who we are and where …€¦ · 1 work with a partner to brainstorm...

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